
1 




IEM.OMAL 



u 



TO THE 




ongras of tl\e f|nitcd Staffs, 



FROM THE 



EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, 



APPOINTED AT THE 



(S^iniaii-Hi'mericaiv Ultci** llTieclmg, 



ON BEHALF OF 






fRME 




MELD N C ) V E M B E I J 2 Is t, 187 



\T THE 



CITY OF NEW YORK. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 

in 2011 with funding from 

The Library of Congress 






\ 

http://www.archive.org/details/memorialtocongre01newy 



To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
States, in Congress assembled : — 

The undersigned, your Memorialists, citizens of the United 
States of German descent and residents of the City and State of 
New York, do most respectfully represent : 

For more than five years a bloody conflict has been waged upon 
the Island of Cuba. The world has not been left in ignorance of 
the object and purposes of this revolutionary strife. It is a noto- 
rious fact that the Cubans, at least a majority of them, are deter- 
mined to sever all political connections with their ancient govern- 
ment in Europe and establish their independence as a free and 
sovereign State. Spain on her part exerts all her material and 
warlike power to suppress this yearning for Liberty and Indepen- 
dence, and strives to exact complete submission of the Revolu- 
tionists to her demands. During the long continuance of this war 
— for such it must be justly called — the barbarous ferocity of the 
Spanish representatives in Cuba has not abated, but rather in- 
creased. The Executive of the United States has time and again 
officially protested against this violation of all the rules of civilized 
warfare on the part of Spain, but without any practical results. 
Not only the rightfulness of the cause of those who stand in the field 
for Cuban independence, but also the savage method of warfare 
persistently maintained by Spain, created an intense feeling in the 
United States. In the language of Daniel Webster, "When the 
United States behold the people of foreign countries * * * spon- 
taneously moving toward the adoption of institutions like their own, 
it surely cannot be expected of them to remain wholly in different 
spectators." And in view of the many brutalities, murders und 
assassinations, justified by no law either of war or of necessity, 



2 

which have been perpetrated by Spanish officials in that unhappy 
island, the American people must remember the burning words 
uttered by Henry Clay in the House of Eepresentatives of Congress 
on the 20th of January, 1824, when speaking of the unheard-of 
barbarities and wholesale slaughters committed by the Turks 
against the Greek insurrectionists :— "Are we so mean, so debased, 
so despicable, that we will not attempt to express our horror, utter 
our indignation, at the most brutal and atrocious war that ever 
stained earth or shocked high heaven, at the ferocious deeds of a 
savage and infuriated soldiery, rioting in all the excesses of blood 
and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart' sickens and 
recoils ? " The late executions or rather massacres at Santiago de 
Cuba recall with vastly increased force these noble words of the 
great American statesman of a past era, who seems to speak to us 
from his grave in the emergency of the hour. 

For eight years the American people sustained what for a long- 
time appeared as an unequal and almost hopeless conflict. They 
have their own experience to justify them in sympathizing with a 
neighboring people struggling to obtain for themselves the Eights, 
Liberties and the same Independence from European Dominion, 
which the United States, after much suffering and slaughter and 
many years of military reverses, succeeded at last in achieving for 
their country. But the Star of Fortune did not smile permanently 
upon their banner, until enlightened governments of Europe, like 
that of Holland and France and the Great Frederick of Prussia, 
recognized in the revolted colonies a belligerent power possessing 
all the rights of an independent nation at war with another. And 
it was the combined action of the Courts of Austria, Russia and 
Prussia, in the year 1781, proposing an International Congress 
between the belligerents, which led to the preliminary conferences 
at the Hague and finally resulted in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, 
from which dates the acknowledgment by England of the Inde- 
pendence of the United States. 

Your Memorialists beg pardon for this reference to well-known 
facts of American history, and they offer for excuse that ever since 
those memorable days the American people held in sacred memory 
the aid they received from other nations in their first struggle for 
National Life, and have themselves aided with their sympathy and 
often materially all rising nationalities on this hemisphere fixedly 
determined to cut loose from further subjection to European powers. 
Your memorialists beg also to call attention to the course of the 
American Government, including the Congress and the Supreme 



Court of the United States, towards the revolutionary war carried 
on by the people of the many Spanish Vice-Royalties on the Ame- 
rican continent against the parent country in Europe. The ill- 
fated expedition of Miranda, which left these shores to assist the 
insurgents in Venezuela, while Thomas Jefferson yet occupied the 
presidential chair, was openly assisted by the people, and numerous 
other expeditions in aid of the Revolution in the various other 
colonies were similarly supported and helped by popular sympathy 
during the fifteen years that the cruel war continued. Although the 
resolution recognizing the independence of the revolted colonies as 
free states, did not pass Congress until 1822, — two years before 
Spain was compelled by the ill success of her forces to submit to 
the inevitable, and before any other government took the same step, 
- — the Revolutionists were long before treated as belligerents and 
their right to buy ships, arms and ammunition in this country was 
not only diplomatically conceded them, but our Courts of Admiralty 
almost uniformly maintained it, and it was finally and authorita- 
tively settled by the Supreme Court of the United States, under the 
leadership of Chief Justice' Marshall in the celebrated case of the 
Santissima Trinidad. Your memorialists beg leave to state it as 
their opinion, that even the stringent Neutrality Act of 1818 seems, 
in their view, not to change that principle, in as much as by the 
force of its very terms any "people" may be recognized as a sove- 
reignty, capable, if at peace with the United States, of enjoying in 
our ports all the rights of an' independent power in a state of belli- 
gerency, and the United States are certainly not at war with the 
"people" of Cuba. Again your Memorialists would respectfully refer 
to an undoubted authority in American Legislation. The Neutrality 
Act of 1818 was passed — although your memorialists are fully 
aware of the influence exercised bv the British Government under 
Mr. Canning at the same time and in the same direction — after, and 
probably in consequence of a resolution introduced by Henry Clay 
in the House of Representatives on the 3d of December, 1817, in 
the following words : "That the said committee be instructed to 
inquire whether any, and if any what, provisions of law are neces- 
sary to insure to the American colonies of Spain a just observance 
of the duties of the neutral relation in which the United States 
stand in the existing war between them and Spain." In advocating 
this resolution Mr. Clay on the same day made use of this langu- 
age : "Let us look at the condition of the patriots. No minister 
here to spur on our g< >vernment. No ; their unfortunate case is 
what ours has been in the years 1778 and 1779 ; their ministers, 



4 

like our Franklins and Jays, are skulking about imploring *. * * for 
one kind look — some aid to terminate a war afflicting humanity." 
And on the 10th of May, 1820, Henry Clay from his seat in the 
House again addressed himself to the subject and said : " The 
relation of colonies and mother country can no longer exist, from 
the nature of things, under whatever aspect the Government of 
Spain might assume. The condition of Spain is no reason for 
neglecting now to do what we ought to have done long ago." In 
view of our present complications with Cuba and of the fact that 
there was a revolution in Spain at that time as there is now, these 
words come down to us from the past as the wise counsels of one of 
the wisest of American statesmen. No wonder that he received the 
votes of thanks of all these Spanish- American Kepnblics and still 
lives in their grateful memory. 

While your memorialists fully agree that the efforts to form 
and consolidate a Republic in Spain deserves the fullest and 
warmest sympathy of our government and people, yet the attempt 
of that country to hold in subjection by force of arms a people on 
this continent determined to be as free from its dominion, as the 
other Spanish- American Republics, must be deprecated and con- 
demned. What, in the case of these earlier wars of Spain on this 
continent, was well done by the statesmen of the Republic, when 
this country was yet weak in the eyes of the world, with a population 
of less than twenty million souls, cannot be wrong now when the 
United States rank among the first and most powerful nations on 
the globe and their interests ought to be considered superior to 
those having colonial possessions in such near proximity and 
situated as the Island of Cuba. Your Memorialists cannot refrain 
from declaring that in this connection they believe to express what 
has been the settled policy of America since the foundation of its 
present government. It is a matter of history, unfortunately forgot- 
ten by too many in the turmoil and the tremendous concussion of 
events within the last twelve years, that under President Fillmore's 
administration England and France proposed a tripartite treaty, by 
which the United States and the other two governments named were 
to bind themselves never in all the future to disturb the possession 
of Cuba by Spain. Secretary Webster at once, within six days 
after the receipt of the proposition, formally declined to entertain 
it. After the death of that great man, Edward Everett, his suc- 
cessor as Secretary of State, in a lengthy despatch dated Dec. 1st, 
1852, gave the reasons actuating the Government for not entering 
into the treatv. 



" The island of Cuba," said our Secretary to the English and 
French Ambassadors, "lies at our doors; it commands the approach 
to the Gulf of Mexico, which washes the shores of five of our states; it 
bars the entrance to that great river, which drains half the North 
American Continent and, with its tributaries, forms the largest 
system of internal water communication in the world ; it "keeps 
watch at the doorway of our intercourse with California by the 
Isthmus route. If an island like Cuba, belonging to the Spanish 
crown, guarded the entrance to the Thames or the Seine, and the 
United States should propose a convention like this to England and 
France, those powers would assuredly feel that the disability 
assumed by ourselves was far less serious than that which we asked 
them to assume." 

And further on in the same document we read these memorable 
declarations : " Spain has retained, of her extensive dominions in 
this hemisphere, but the two islands of Cuba and Porto Rico ; a 
respectful sympathy with the fortunes of an ancient ally and a 
gallant people, with whom the United States have ever maintained 
the most friendly relations, would, if no other reason existed, make 
it our duty to leave her in the undisturbed possession of this little 
remnant of her mightly transatlantic Empire. The President 
(Fillmore) desires to do so. No word or deed of his will ever 
question her title or shake her possession. But can it be expected 

TO LAST VERY LONG ? CAN IT RESIST THIS MIGHTHY CURRENT IN THE FOR- 
TUNES OF THE WORLD ? Is IT DESIRABLE THAT IT SHOULD DO SO ? CAN 
IT BE FOR THE INTEREST OF SPAIN TO CLING TO A POSSESSION THAT CAN 
ONLY BE MAINTAINED BY A GARRISON OF 25,000 OR 30,000 TROOPS AND A 

powerful naval force ? * * ■* * No administration of the govern- 
ment, however strong in the public confidence in other respects, 
could stand a day under the odium of having stipulated that * * * 
in no future times under no change of circumstances, * * * b\ no 
consent of the inhabitants of the island, should they, like the pos- 
sessions of Spain on the American continent, succeed in rendering 
themselves independent ; in fine, that by no overruling necessity of 
self-preservation should the United States ever make the acquisition 
of Cuba." These views Mr. Everett, after his retirement from 
office upon a change of administration, fully maintened in a letter 
published in the newspapers on the 16th of September 1853 and 
the then Secretary of State, William L. Marcy also adhered to 
them. 

Your Memorialists believe that the change of circumstances 
hypothetically predicted by Secretary Everett, has already taken 



place and the fruitless resistance of Spain for five years to the 
mighty current toward freedom and independence in Cuba seems to 
prove the prophetic foresight of the American statesman. 

But your Memorialists are not insensible to the fact that the 
inhabitants of the island have not yet gained their independence. 
Though struggling for many years, their success is still undecided. 
Yet recent events have conclusively shown that the most vital 
interests of the American Union, the sanctity of its flag upon the 
high seas and the right of American citizens to be secure in their 
persons and property when protected by that flag, are not only put 
in peril, but have been grievously injured by Spanish officials in 
Cuba. Believing that by means of Diplomatic courtesies the rightful 
remedy for such gross insults — war — has for the present been avoided, 
your Memorialists are yet convinced that it is only postj:>oned and not 
to a far day in the future. In the light of the past history your 
Memorialists would respectfully pray that the resolution introduced 
in the House of Representatives on the 8th of December 1873, by the 
Hon. Samuel S. Cox, or one of similar import, be passed, granting 
to the people of Cuba, organized for several years in a republican 
form of government in all its Departments, and having in their Con- 
stitution decreed the immediate and perpetual abolition of slavery 
on the island, at least the Rights of Belligerents, and recognizing 
a state of war to exist between the Republic of Spain and the 
"People" of Cuba. When the people of Hungary organized them- 
selves into a Republic, with Louis Kossuth as its provisional Pre- 
sident, Gen. Taylor sent A. Dudley Mann from the State Depart- 
ment to Europe, with instructions and credentials to recognize the 
nascent Republic, if on his arrival he should find it capable of 
maintaining itself. Unfortunately the Russian intervention was by 
that time beating out its life, but the proposed recognition by the 
United States gave occasion to Daniel Webster, as Secretary of 
State to send forth to the world that heroic answer to the Chevalier 
Huelsemann, in which he almost passionately declares that " while 
performing with strict and exact fidelity all their neutral duties, 
nothing will deter either the government or the people of the 
United States from exercising, at their own discretion, the rights 
belonging to them as an independent nation, and of forming and 
expressing their own opinions, freely and at all times, upon the 
great political events which may transpire among the civilized 
nations of the earth." 

Your Memorialists live in the fervent hope that the spirit 
of Clay, of Webster, of Everett and Marcy, and of other leading 



and great men of the country is still alive among the American 
people and ready, as of yore, to defend their rights and avenge any 
insult to their honor. The capture of the Yirginius and the massacre 
of a portion of her crew have brought this whole subject prominently 
before your Honorable Bodies and before the public at large, and 
your Memorialists beg to represent that a just punishment of the 
perpetrators of these outrages and of all who aided and abetted 
them, as well as to repress forever the barbarous mediaeval spirit and 
the mode of warfare which made these horrors possible, would be 
the recognition of the Cuban Patriots as Belligerents, and this 
sturdy band of Republicans with the aid which under International 
Laws and the Neutrality Acts, such acknowledgment of their inde- 
pendent national existence for the purposes of this war, could enable 
them to obtain without hindrance, would themselves soon avenge 
the insult and injury heaped upon their cause and upon the Ameri- 
can people in the course of so many years by the haughty and 
brutal officials of a volunteer mob, almost beyond the control of 
the home government in Spain. 

Your Memorialists do further represent, that under the various 
forms of government in Spain since 1868, including the present 
Republican system, she unerringly followed the same policy 
towards Cuba as for centuries before. That policy, in the opinion 
of your Memorialists, is but the carrying out, at least in spirit if not 
to the very letter, of the principles enunciated by the Congress of 
European Monarchs, held at Verona in 1821, in regard to the revo- 
lutionary movements then going on in Naples, in Spain and in the 
Spanish Colonies in America. President Monroe, in his message in 
1823 protested most solemnly, against the Doctrines of the Verona 
Congress being made applicable to this continent and that protest 
has ever been one of the fundamental rules of action in the 
intercourse of the United States with foreign nations and within the 
memory of all, it prevented the imperialization of Mexico only a 
few years ago. This rule, hailed with patriotic delight in every part 
of the Union when first proclaimed, has not yet lost and never will 
lose its hold upon the hearts of the people and since Spain and her 
representatives in Cuba persist in virtually maintaining, next to our 
shores a system of government which, though sanctioned by the Con- 
gress of Verona, was always regarded, as inimical to American 
Liberty and Progress, it is but right that the patriots in that 
oppressed island should not be left wholly unaided, to make an end 
of it in the interest both of themselves and of the United States. 

Very recent information from Havana brought intelligence that 



8 

a Spanish prize court had assumed jurisdiction over the case of the 
Virginius and adjudicated her a legitimate capture or, in other 
words, a prize of war. Your memorialists beg to refer to the well 
known rule that prize courts are recognized only by the Internatio- 
nal laws of war and that where no war exists there can be no prizes 
and no prize courts, except in cases of piracy to which category the 
Virginius evidently did not belong. It would seem that this re- 
ported decision of the Spanish prize court in Havana does virtually 
settle the belligerent status of the Cuban Revolution, for without 
a state of war existing between Spain and the Cubans, there could 
be no prizes of war and no adjudications by prize courts. By 
recognizing such a state of belligerency between the two parties, 
the United States would, therefore, as it appears to your memoria- 
lists, only acknowledge a state of things which a Spanish court took 
for granted in assuming jurisdiction over the case at all, without in 
any wise admitting that the adjudication itself was right or war- 
ranted by treaties and the Law of Nations. 

Your Memorialists, believing it their duty, in consideration of 
the grave events of the day, to give full expression to their views, 
and approach the American Congress as American Citizens, with 
their humble memorial and petition and sabmit their prayer confi- 
dently to the scrutiny of your Honorable Bodies and, as in duty 
bound, will ever pray &c. 

Neiv York, January 3, 1874. 

WM. RADDE, President. 

SAM. BROMBERG, \ q 

F. W. BLECKWENN, | becretarles - 

C, GODFREY GltNTHER, Dr. AUG. FRECH, 

J. MAIDHOF, WM. BOECKEL, 

GEO. W. SAUER, H. HERTZ, 

Dr. AD. BERCKMANN, Dr. A. V. HOFER, 

M. BRUMMERHOP, A. MAIERHOFER, 

Dr. PH. MERKLE, C. G. JOHANSEN, 

H. BRAUNHOLD, H. E. SACKMANN, 

Dr. F. SEEGER, CHAS. MAGNUS, 

CH1S. KINKEL, JOHN RUDOLPH Y. 

Executive Com mittee. 



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015 999 777 7 



